Category Archives: K. B. Wagers

This debut series from K.B. Wagers continues to surprise and impress me with her story-telling ability and political intrigue on a level that most established authors don’t even have. In the first book, Behind the Throne, Hail comes back to her homeland to become the leader of her people after being away for 20 years as a gun-runner. In After the Crown, a war with a rival civilization, and people that want to oust her as leader creates a much more adventure packed story as we get to meet a lot of Hail’s old gun-runner friends. The great political intrigue from Behind the Throne is present but the number of characters is basically doubled in After the Crown with more action.

I think that readers of political intrigue science fiction and space opera type stories would enjoy these two books. There are some similarities between this series and Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series at times, mostly the pace. Wagers does a great job of keeping things interesting and moving along with her stories without much down time. She also explores the interpersonal relationships between Hail and her subordinates like Brown does with his characters. I just really like a lot of the characters in this story. I could probably name about 10 characters that I enjoy because Wagers focuses so much on the friendships and that is what I love to read.

I feel that After the Crown is a little less polished than Behind the Throne and my main concern about her work. Even though I knew everything that was going on there were times during dialogues where I got a little confused with who was saying what. There are so many characters involved in these governments and militaries that I would be lying if I knew every person that they talked about. In fact, when certain characters died, I had to remind myself who that character even was. I also think that the antagonist gets a little murky here and there at times because of the multiple amounts of people against Hail. I think if the book focused a little more on Wilson, one of the main antagonists, it would have felt a little more clear. Also, this isn’t a science fiction book that will blow you away by its concepts, it is purely a space opera.

Overall, I think this is a solid second book in her series. I’ve enjoyed both books very much. I am still loving the India-based culture and the decision-making by the main character. With a lot of books I can never tell if a man or woman is writing the book but with these books, I can definitely tell it is a woman writer. The reason I can tell it is a woman writer is because the decisions and actions by the main character are usually not the options I would choose as a man. Her choices make complete sense and Wagers writes this book that keeps surprising me by using female logic to solve problems that sometimes I would never think about and I appreciate that.

I hope to read a lot more from K.B. Wagers in the future. Along with Becky Chambers, I think she is one of the most impressive new female science fiction writers out there. She just tells a great story, with great characters, that care about each other.

Behind the Throne ended up totally something I wasn’t expecting but worked really well for me. The summaries have words like “action-packed,” and descriptions comparing it to Star Wars, yet the entire book is mostly court intrigue. Hail has been away from her royal family for the past 20 years because she left home at the age of 18 to pursue the killer of her father. She became a gunrunner for the most notorious criminal in the galaxy and she can fight or talk her way out of any predicament. Hailimi now has to return to her home planet to become the heir of the throne after both her sisters are murdered by organizations within the empire that want the current leadership ousted. She must survive assassination attempts, figure out who is responsible for the death of her sisters, and navigate the royal court intrigue. Luckily for Hailimi, she can use the same skills she learned to survive as an expert space pirate to be a princess.

I really enjoyed this book even though my expectations of what it really was about were thrown out. This is very much a story similar to The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, only in this story, Hail is more equipped to handle political intrigue. Hail is confident, out-spoken, and incredibly defensive of those that she cares about. This makes Hail an extremely likable character with some fun rough around the edges behavior.

What I appreciate about this story is how diverse the cast of characters are. The Indrana Empire is based off India’s culture because when space was colonized, different races volunteered to settle the stars. At this particular planet, the Indian women survived and set up a matriarchy empire. Because of this matriarchy empire, the gender roles are reversed in much of Behind the Throne. It is the men that are striving for more representation and equality while the women rule the state. There are many non-white characters, characters with varying degrees of skin color, LG characters, and many different descriptions of individuals with dreads or braided hair. The main character, Hailimi, has green hair that is in braids and wears Indian Saris.

I had a good time reading this because the book read at a brisk pace. The mystery of who is trying to overthrow this government drives the story along and this plot is written solidly. Yes, it is rather predictable, but where it isn’t predictable is the character relationships. My favorite part of this entire book was Hail’s relationship with her two bodyguards Emmory and Zin. Emmory and Zin are a male couple that is a part of an elite spy/guard like force that pairs up two individuals at a young age to work together their entire life, most of the time with them becoming intimate. At first, Emmory doesn’t trust Hail because Hail was thought to be a traitor, and she was in a relationship with Emmory’s brother. What is refreshing here, is that Wagers could have written a story about her main character falling in love with her bodyguard even though she was previously in a relationship with the bodyguard’s dead brother, and created a ton of drama because of that. Instead of doing that, Wagers took the more difficult path by making Emmory gay and exploring the theme of trust between Hail and Emmory.

Within this book, I felt that the descriptions when something surprising happened that Hail was a little too melodramatic. I also thought that the world building didn’t really add anything all that different and exciting. Sure, I loved the empire based off of India’s culture but I wanted more strange science fiction things in this book. One of my favorite things about reading science fiction is seeing how the culture of a different planet is really different than ours and there wasn’t a whole lot other than gender norms being flipped. Regardless, I really liked this book and I’m looking forward to the sequel. I am hoping in the sequel we have more space combat, larger stakes, and the war with an opposing empire becomes the focus. Check this book out, it is a great debut by an author that I think will stick around for awhile.